Pearl Farm Beach Resort

Valentine’s Day is a special celebration in many countries on February 14 each year. In Korea and Japan, Vday is a wonderful opportunity for girls to confess their love to guys.

Danny and I got to experience Valentine’s (and our 1st month as Mr. & Mrs.) together at Pearl Farm Beach Resort. It is situated in the Island Garden City of Samal that is approximately 50 minutes travel via a ferry boat. There are 3 trips daily from Davao to Pearl Farm and vice versa. Guests are encourage to book for day tours and hotel reservations.

Their Valentine’s day promo comes with an overnight stay, dinner and breakfast buffet for 2 plus a bouquet of flowers. So, we booked about a week or two before the event. It would be much nicer if Danny made it a surprise, though.

Feb 14 came, we took the 2pm boat going to Pearl Farm. It was raining on and off that afternoon but the ride was smooth and fine. Upon arrival, they welcomed us with a watermelon juice, some tribal music and a bit of information about Pearl Farm. This was my 3rd time (Danny’s 2nd) to that place but our first for an overnight stay.

The infinity pool and restaurant could be seen along the way to the front desk. When we got our room key, we took a short walk to our room. We stayed at Samal House #6 out of 20 rooms.

It is built on seawater and the house is made up of bamboo, wood and native materials.

We saw a school of fish out of the crystal clear seawater.

The room is spacious enough for 2 persons and a wall separated us from another room.

Look how expensive their food is!

We came out of the room after awhile and explored the whole resort. Too bad, we couldn’t see the sunset because of the cloudy weather.

Farther to Samal houses are the Mandaya houses, which has their own pool and seashore, too.

Curious, little bird.

Balay houses, the most affordable accommodation, are located above the resort. It has a garden, a small fish pond and a panoramic view of the sea.

Samal suites are those 2-storey suites located at the opposite side of Samal houses. This is ideal for a family.

There is also a boat ride going to Malipano Island every hour for free. Villas, chapel and the pavilion can be found on the island.

We found a peacock, too.View from the villa

There is nothing much to see actually. We went back to our room while the staff were busy preparing for Valentine’s dinner.

At 6:30pm, we went out again. Some people were already seated at their special reserved seats. But others, like us, were free to sit anywhere. Flower petals were scattered on the floor. They served lots of good food including lechon but no free wine or any drinks except water. Nevertheless, everyone was enjoying dinner while a live violinist was playing in the background. There was also a free picture taking at a booth. Danny and I ate until almost 9pm.

A bokeh shot

Back to our room, we couldn’t sleep yet since we were very full. We decided to watch TV, but only the CNN channel was on mute while no signal to some other channels. The TV is even smaller than my PC monitor.

We woke up at 8am the next morning, took a quick shower and headed to the restaurant. Our full breakfast – all kinds of cheese, crispy bacon, yogurt etc. Too bad, the fruit section was leftovers from last night’s dinner.

We roamed around once more while waiting for check out. At 11:30am, we packed our things, left the room, surrendered the key at the front desk and they gave us a boat pass. We took the 1pm ferry boat trip to Davao and that was how our Vday 2015 celebration ended.

There are also number of things that we think a ten-thousand room accommodation is not worth it, such as:

1. Defective hot shower – Hot shower turns to a cold one after few minutes. A tub could be more worthy, though.

2. Small TV and no signal to some channels.

3. Low to no internet signal.

4. Because it is made of wood, we could hear some noise from the other room.

5. 2 single beds were joined to make 1 big bed.

However, those things were somehow made up by the politeness of the staff, the breath-taking views, the beautiful turquoise-blue water, delicious food and the serenity of the resort. Overall, we enjoyed our stay. I hope you guys had a great Valentine’s day too.